As a young whippersnapper I think I first became interested in David Bowie because of the science fiction elements in some of his songs. He fitted in very nicely with the Marvel comics and episodes of “The Tomorrow People” that were the staples of my cultural diet back then.

To me, “Space Oddity” didn’t have any deep subtext about alienation or even drugs (I swear I never even knew what drugs were), but was just something to do with astronauts and rockets, and “Life On Mars” wasn’t about… well, I’ve never understood what that was about but it had the word “Mars” in the title so I thought it was dead good. Plus, the guy looked like an alien himself most of the time, you really did half expect him to climb into a spaceship and fly away after he’d finished giving Mick Ronson’s guitar a blow job.

Bowie resurrected Major Tom (and his own career) on the 1980 single “Ashes To Ashes” which probably had more subtext and hidden meanings than any song in the history of popular music. A few months before that he actually released another version of “Space Oddity” itself which appeared on the b-side of his rather peculiar cover of “Alabama Song.” This is light years (ha!) away from the lush, Stylophone-tripping production of the original with a stripped-down, minimalist instrumentation like John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album. The primitive sound gives the song a more emotional edge and Bowie puts far more feeling and angst into it, as if in this post-Berlin stage of his life being lost forever in the cold darkness of space wasn’t the groovy idea he thought it was as a fresh-faced flower child in 1969.

He first sang this version on the 1979 Kenny Everett New Year’s Eve television show while sitting in a padded cell – so Major Tom wasn’t only now a junkie but a looney too? Or is it all really about Inner Space and is Major Tom really Bowie himself? So many questions that I really used to care a lot about.

This turned up as a bonus track on a CD of the “Scary Monsters” album issued in the early 90s but I’m not sure where you can get it now.

Download: Space Oddity (1980 version) – David Bowie (mp3)